Wendy Schollum: Ringing phones to ringing tills

Anyone who owns a retail store knows, all too well, the impact "foot traffic" can have on sales - especially when the weather turns ghastly or a street loses popularity. But, with virtually every consumer now armed with a web-enabled mobile phone, retailers need to start focusing their attention on generating and leveraging "virtual foot traffic", to increase their bottom line.
Last week, Facebook Places was launched in New Zealand. And, whether you are a dentist or a café, a mechanic or a fashion store, Facebook Places provides any business owner with a physical location, an easy and free way to leverage virtual foot traffic to generate awareness about their stores, stimulate online recommendations from previous patrons and ultimately increase real-world foot traffic and sales.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with how Facebook works, it is essentially a website that allows people to create online circles of friends (the average user has more than 130 friends) and share information about their lives with these people, through short online posts (known as status updates), image/video uploads and (as of last week) "check ins" and reviews at specific locations, using their mobile phone and the new Facebook Places tools.
The new tools that Facebook Places provides users benefit retailers in the form of:
Increased exposure - when Facebook users check in at a physical location all of their friends are automatically told where that user is and provided with a link to view more details about that location/store and where it is, in map form.
Word of mouth marketing - when users check in they are encouraged to include a short text review and/or image. So, if that user has enjoyed the concert they just attended, or the coffee they just consumed, they are highly likely to say so in their check in, letting their 130 (on average) friends know that this is a place worth visiting - the most trusted form of marketing is a recommendation from a friend.
Increased real-world foot traffic and sales - retailers can incentivise visits to their location by claiming their Place on Facebook Places and setting up deals that reward Facebook users for checking in at their location (eg offering a small discount when the user checks in), for bringing along a friend (many retailers in the US now offer Facebook users 2-for-1 deals if they check in at their store with a friend) or if the user is a repeat visitor/purchaser (a deal can be set up that is only available if a user checks in a certain number of times - think of this as a digital loyalty card). All of these deals not only encourage users to physically visit the location, they also encourage repeat visits which ultimately lead to more people finding out about the business, as users continue to check in at that location (telling 130 of their closest friends about it each time they do).
Businesses that want to start leveraging Facebook Places should be quick to claim their Place on the site so that they can monitor what customers are saying about their business online, ensure the correct information about their business appears on the page and set up deals to transform virtual foot traffic into real-world sales.
Wendy Schollum is a web strategist and managing director of Xplore.net Solutions Ltd (www.xplore.net). If you would like to learn more about claiming and managing your location on Facebook Places, join Wendy on Facebook (www.facebook.com/xploreNET), follow the Xplore.net team on Twitter (www.twitter.com/xploreNET), email the friendly Xplore.net team (support@xplore.net) or call 0800 100 900.